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Monday, June 24, 2002

Budweiser and Foosball

Newsgroups: rec.sport.table-soccer Date: 2002-06-09 15:19:52 PST

I have a very cool t-shirt I got in 1977 with the T.S. rainbow logo and Schlitz logo in the middle. Schiltz Brewing Co was once a tour sponsor for the 1977 Tournament Soccer pro tour, but it was not a financial sponsorship as most people would expect. It was more an image sponsorship and like Budweiser explained to you, it had something to do with localized promotions done via area distributors. Kathy Brainard at NATSA can fill you in on that one. But Budweiser, no.

However, to the surprise of most players, there is always something being worked on by Dave and Link at Valley. Unfortunately, due to so many other things going on (they are also responsible for pool and other product sales/promotions) and being understaffed for as much as they need to accomplish, they have not to date been able to devote the kind of time required to land the sort of sponsorship we would all hope for. When I worked at the factory in the mid 90's, there were a few good leads, a few meetings, etc. but nothing really panned out at the time.

Foosball has always been competing with much better publicized, more spectator oriented sports, so its not so easy as everyone thinks. Still, if I owned Valley, I would have created two new full time staff positions: Publicist, and Sponsorships/Fundraising Director. Anyway, the point is that there may or may not be sponsorships "brewing" as it were, but those working the issues never want to get people's hopes up unnecessarily. If we're lucky, maybe someday they'll have a big announcement to make.

So, regardless of what many might argue, Dave, Link, and others that matter at Valley actually do love the game, they have devoted their lives to it, and despite being under the thumb of corporate budgetary constraints imposed by Valley as a company (which is further constrained in massive detail by its owner, Fenway Partners, Inc in New York), they are doing everything they can to help the sport's future. Right now, its our job to give them all the support we can, and to do the same for the people of NATSA and any other organization that has taken on such a massive task.